www.toddbryant.com

13 A happy heart makes the face cheerful,

    but heartache crushes the spirit.

14 The discerning heart seeks knowledge,

    but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.

15 All the days of the oppressed are wretched,

    but the cheerful heart has a continual feast.

16 Better a little with the fear of the Lord

    than great wealth with turmoil.

17 Better a small serving of vegetables with love

    than a fattened calf with hatred.

18 A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict,

    but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

19 The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns,

    but the path of the upright is a highway.

20 A wise son brings joy to his father,

    but a foolish man despises his mother.

21 Folly brings joy to one who has no sense,

    but whoever has understanding keeps a straight course.

22 Plans fail for lack of counsel,

    but with many advisers they succeed.

23 A person finds joy in giving an apt reply—

    and how good is a timely word!

24 The path of life leads upward for the prudent

    to keep them from going down to the realm of the dead.

25 The Lord tears down the house of the proud,

    but he sets the widow’s boundary stones in place.

26 The Lord detests the thoughts of the wicked,

    but gracious words are pure in his sight.

27 The greedy bring ruin to their households,

    but the one who hates bribes will live.

28 The heart of the righteous weighs its answers,

    but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.

29 The Lord is far from the wicked,

    but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

30 Light in a messenger’s eyes brings joy to the heart,

    and good news gives health to the bones.

31 Whoever heeds life-giving correction

    will be at home among the wise.

32 Those who disregard discipline despise themselves,

    but the one who heeds correction gains understanding.

33 Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the Lord,

    and humility comes before honor.

DEATH AND BIRTH OF A VISION

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. - John 12:24

Almost every significant thing God births He allows to die before the vision is fulfilled in His own way.

• Abraham had a vision of being the father of a great nation (birth). Sarah was barren and became too old to have children (death). God gave Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. He became the father of a great nation (fulfillment).

• Joseph had a vision that he would be a great leader and that many would bow down to him (birth). Joseph's brothers sold him to some merchants and he became a slave. Later he was falsely condemned to spend his years in prison (death). God allowed Joseph to interpret the dreams of the butler and baker and later the king, whereupon, he was made a ruler in the land (fulfillment).

• Moses had a vision of leading his people out of the bondage of Egypt (birth). Pharaoh as well as his own people drove Moses out of Egypt after Moses' first attempt to relieve their bondage (death). God gave Moses signs and wonders to convince Pharaoh to free the people and bring them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land (fulfillment).

• The disciples had a vision of establishing the Kingdom of God with Jesus (birth). The very ones He came to save killed Jesus, and the disciples saw Him buried in a tomb (death). God raised Jesus from the dead, and the disciples performed great miracles until the gospel had spread through all the world (fulfillment).

• A grain of wheat has a "vision" of reproducing itself and many more grains of wheat (birth). The grain dies in the ground (death). A harvest springs up out of the very process of "death" in the ground (fulfillment).

Has God given you a vision that is yet unfulfilled? If that vision is born of God, He will raise it up in His own way. Do not try to raise the vision in your own strength. Like Moses, who tried to fulfill the vision of freeing the Hebrews by killing the Egyptian, it will only fail. But wait on your heavenly Father to fulfill the vision. Then you will know that it was His vision when He fulfills it in the way only He can do.

Blackaby Ministries

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

A boy that goes into the candy store for years as a baby helps himself to a gumball with each trip.

At an appropriate age, the storeowner stops the youngster as he begins to help himself to a gumball.  

He tells the boy that he has been taking treats without paying for them, and explains that it is not right to take something that doesn’t belong without proper payment.

The child is confused because he as always helped himself, yet he does understand the storeowner and agrees to pay the price for the treat.  

The next time the youngster comes into the store, the owner is busy working in the back.  

He enjoys the smells and the sights of the store, but can’t stay because he is late to get home.  

As he exits the store, the boy picks up a gumball and pops it into his mouth and continues on his way. 

About half way home the boy begins to feel guilty as he remembers that what he has done is wrong.  

He has taken what was not his, without payment.  

The next day he makes payment to the storeowner, and he never takes a gumball without paying again.  

The storeowner is pleased that the boy has become a man.

A psalm of David.

1 Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?

    Who may live on your holy mountain?

2 The one whose walk is blameless,

    who does what is righteous,

    who speaks the truth from their heart;

3 whose tongue utters no slander,

    who does no wrong to a neighbor,

    and casts no slur on others;

4 who despises a vile person

    but honors those who fear the Lord;

who keeps an oath even when it hurts,

    and does not change their mind;

5 who lends money to the poor without interest;

    who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

Whoever does these things

    will never be shaken.

35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

John 3:18

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

All are lost and our only hope is Jeus.  Salvation has come out of Zion (Psalm 14:7).  His name is Jesus!!!

Read: Luke 16

“And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?” (Luke 16:11, NLT)

It has been said that Jesus talked more about money than about heaven or hell. Many of his parables centered around that very subject, as did his other teachings. That’s because Jesus fully understood the death-grip money could have on the human soul.

Whether or not there was (or is) a literal god of money, I don’t know. Some have supposed that is what Jesus referenced when he spoke of “mammon”. But for sure, the love of money leads to all sorts of problems in this world, and in our lives: Greed, materialism, selfishness, worry, just to name a few. Worst of all, the love of money always crowds out the love of God. That is why Jesus said in Luke 16:13 (NLT),

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

In other words, we are to love God and use money—not vice versa.

Yet as critical as what Jesus said about God and money is, there is yet another facet to this teaching that you as a Christ-follower need to understand: How you use money now will have a direct bearing on the Kingdom authority God wants to release to you in this life, and in his eternal kingdom. That is what Jesus meant in Luke 16:11 when he said if you can’t be trusted with wealth in this world, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?

How you are handling your wealth—your money, home, cars and possessions—is not just isolated to the physical world of the present. It is, in reality, a test-run that will determine the extent to which God will entrust to you authority in realms much more important—the spiritual realm of the Kingdom Life now and the eternal realm of the ageless world to come.

Ask yourself this question today: Who has me? Money or God? Am I loving God and using money? Or in reality—and just take a look at your checkbook register or your Quicken summary if you are unsure what reality is—are you bowing at the altar of Mammon?

“One verse in every six in the first three Gospels relates either directly or indirectly to money. Sixteen of our Lord’s forty-four parables deal with the use of misuse of money. A loving, joyful, liberal giving to the Lord’s work is an acid test of a spiritual heart, pleasing to God.” ~William Allen

What If God Took Over?

Lord, help me to use my money, to the very last cent, in a way that is pleasing to you. When I stand before you some day, may you say of me that I loved you and used money to store up wealth in the eternal kingdom.

by PASTOR RAY

http://raynoah.com/2011/03/01/you-wealth-god-and-eternity/

I was a freshman in college when Facebook came out and I distinctly remember thinking, “why would I need this? I have AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace!”

Well, times have changed. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (and a slew of other sites I’m not cool enough to know about) have simultaneously brought us closer together and driven us further apart. With the exception of a few universally offensive statements or pictures, it’s a rule-free zone where we can interact with society while accepting minimal personal responsibility for the implications of what we do.

In absence of guidelines for healthy and polite social media etiquette, we are left to determine our own boundaries for navigating the seemingly endless opportunities available to us.

Before we snap one more picture of our hot chocolate topped with a foam leaf, perhaps we would benefit from a brief pause—an extra 30 seconds to ask five simple questions might suggest it’s time to unplug, or at least reconsider when and how we use social media:

1. Am I seeking approval?

If you’ve taken an introductory psychology class, you’ve probably heard of B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning. Skinner suggested that we learn behaviors through reinforcement.

WHEN WE VIEW SOCIAL MEDIA FROM A LENS OF DISCONTENTMENT, WHATEVER WE FIND WILL BE COLORED WITH BITTERNESS AND UNGRATEFULNESS.

When I seek validation through something I post and that little red flag starts popping up to notify me of each person giving me attention, it’s an addictive reward. And it works. I feel better, so I keep coming back for more. The next time I need to feel approval, I’ll return to the source that poured it out last time, and the cycle of reinforcement continues.

What are the bigger needs asking to be met here? Maybe it’s a desire for community. Perhaps it stems from unresolved conflict with someone I love. Or maybe I just thrive on pleasing people and hearing their praise. If your interaction with the internet is driven by a need for approval, consider healthier ways to address this issue and choose to stop reinforcing the unhealthy ones.

2. Am I boasting?

There’s sharing excitement and then there’s bragging. Truthfully, we each know which camp we fall in.

When the Apostle Paul described what it meant to love others, he specifically mentioned that love does not boast. That post isn’t “just a picture” or “just a tweet,” it’s an opportunity to love others in a way that reflects Jesus. Or it’s an opportunity to show them something quite different, something that looks nothing like Christ.

Examine your motivations and walk away before using social media as the adult version of show-and-tell.

3. Am I discontent?

Are you looking for something “better”? If so, walk away. Nothing you will read, write or see is going to solve this one.

Instead, ask yourself why you are discontent and address those needs. When we view social media from a lens of discontentment, whatever we find will be colored with bitterness and ungratefulness. Their lives will begin to look brighter than ours, while our lives will take on a sense of lacking.

Let us not forget—their world is as ordinary as ours and our life is as exciting as theirs. Do you believe that in your core? If not, take a break. Deactivate your account for a couple months. Create space to reevaluate and look for answers in the places you’ll actually find them. Stop asking the virtual world to solve dissatisfaction with the physical one.

4. Is this a moment to protect?

When my son crawls into my lap, he doesn’t want me to take his picture and shoot it across Facebook. He doesn’t care who else thinks I have a cute kid. He just wants me to hold him and see him. To feel his soft, chunky arms and to focus on the way his eyelashes move when he blinks.

When we interrupt lunch with a friend in order to quote her on Twitter, we invite hundreds of people into a conversation that could have been sacred; and we miss the sweet memories that may have formed had her words remained simply between the two of us.

Not every great moment needs to be shared. In fact, some of the best times are most enjoyed privately. If we suspend the present in an attempt to capture its beauty in 140 characters or less, we sacrifice our experience of the moment itself. We also rob each other of something that has been lost in our digital age—keeping a handful of memories between us and those we are closest to, or even just between us and God.

5. Is it kind?

Let’s return to Paul and his call to love. “Love is patient. Love is kind.”

Our culture tells us it’s our right to comment on everything, regardless of whether it was addressed to us and without consideration for how it might affect others.

WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN COVERED SPACE FROM WHICH TO THROW GRENADES, WITHOUT REQUIRING US TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WEIGHT OF OUR WORDS.

We’ve replaced face-to-face confrontation with sharp comments and mocking memes. We write demeaning tweets addressed to celebrities or openly criticize individuals we have never met, hiding behind the convenience that they cannot directly defend themselves and nobody is putting our personal lives on display for public criticism.

We have been given covered space from which to throw grenades, without requiring us to take responsibility for the weight of our words, their effect on other people and their reflection on the Church. Jesus said the world would recognize us by our love. What messages are we sending?

A Better Way

Social Media seems to be built around the idea that it can infiltrate nearly every part of our lives. And if we let it, that’s exactly what will happen. We are the ones who say when its reach becomes unhealthy.

As children, our parents laid out rules for our protection and as adults we took on the task of caring for our own well being and personal growth. It’s our job to set boundaries and ask tough questions, tending to the bigger picture of our relationships and the way our actions reflect Christ’s love for this world.

It’s worth noting that these are questions we ask of ourselves, not criteria for interpreting and evaluating others. We cannot know their hearts anymore than they can know ours.

Let us pause and give ourselves an honest moment to reflect—bringing discernment, love and wisdom to each picture and word we share.

From:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech/5-questions-ask-posting-social-media

BY CARA JOYNER

JANUARY 14, 2014

Cara Joyner is a freelance writer and stay-at-home-mom living on the East Coast with her husband and two sons. After years of working in student ministry, she has come home to raise her boys and pursue her Master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She loves hanging out with college students, watching Parenthood and eating chocolate like it's one of the food groups. Read more at carajoyner.com or find her onTwitter @cara_joyner.

14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:31–34

http://northpoint.org/messages/breathing-room/ex-squeeze-yourself/

One year ago today my baby got wings before I could look into her eyes. I will always remember a life that I never held in my hands, but I will never let go of in my heart. God reveals to us in His Word that not only does life begin at conception, but He knows who we are even before then (Jeremiah 1:5). King David said this about God's role in our conception: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb . . . your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:13, 16). I believe that all unborn babies are with Jesus in Heaven, and that is enough for me.